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Me: “How would that make it better? You’d only spend longer in the queue. And then have to join an even bigger queue for the bogs.”

Nameless: (a lightbulb pings on above his head. An epiphany) “They should extend half-time to half an hour, eh?. Give us time to get TWO pints in…”

The end.

Are we really that desperate for a pint – and probably not even a decent one? How culturally dysfunctional does it make us sound, that booze is seen as the silver bullet to football’s match day experience?

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But that’s the debate we’re having – again. So it needs to be pointed out – again – that this kind of single-issue garbage is exactly why we never get the damn thing over the line.

Should we be allowed to buy a beer at our football stadiums? Sure. We already are.

We’ve got a fans’ bar at Falkirk. And before you say it, yes, God knows we need it right now. It’s run as a social enterprise in a South Stand facility funded by our charity foundation, a quality local brewer comes in and set up a couple of taps, there’s bottles, big screens, it’s ideal for an out-of-town stadium with no pub in walking distance and the club benefits.

St Mirren have the same, Killie and Dunfermline have had them for years.

And then, of course, there is the hospitality.

Sitting in the car park at Celtic Park last weekend trying to finish my work after a fire alarm had seen us evacuated, I get this thud on the window from a guy, absolutely bladdered, offering me 30 quid to take him and his mates to Central Station.

He was legless. If he’d tried to walk through a turnstile in that nick, he’d have been turned away. But because he was in a suit, he was fine.

So the argument isn’t so much about whether it should be allowed, It’s whether it should be discriminatory against people not prepared or not able to shell out £100 for the privilege.

It’s about choice. About the majority fans not being treated as pariahs because of the neanderthals of 40 years ago, most of whom will now be either in their dotage or dead. Their children and grandchildren are now paying the price for a piece of legislation brought in, rightly at the time, to get football on an even keel. To rid it of the ‘cairy-oot’-fuelled excesses which blighted the landscape.

And no, our national sport’s culture still isn’t perfect. There’s still be a fair share of complete throbbers to whom we shouldn’t be selling that fuel.

But the biggest mistake of the lot that we’re making – and it’s always the same – is that the motivation for doing this stinks to high heaven. As usual.

Anyone looking to truly introduce this as a fan-friendly gesture should be doing at as a piece of thinking to improve everything about the matchday experience. It should be one of a hundred things that could be done better, part of a well-researched and non-partisan piece of research which asked the biggest contributors to the coffers of Scottish football – us, the fans – what they want, and how they can help us.

(Image: SNS Group)

Is that why we’re having the conversation now, though? Aye right.

We’re having it because of the 13 centres being used for Euro 2020, Hampden will be the only one where fans of the four nations calling it home for the week won’t be able to buy a beer on the concourse.

So while the end may justify the means, just remember who they’re serving. And think about what it is we’re actually talking about.

What football clubs currently offer fans once they’e over the threshold is, with a few honourable exceptions, overpriced garbage.

What makes people think them selling beer from a tap in their pie gantry is going to suddenly turn it artisanal? It’ll be a fiver a pint, in a plastic tumbler, it’ll be 3 per cent max, and you’ll irritate everyone around you when your bladder won’t hold out without you shuffling off to the lavvies as soon as you’re back in your spot for the second half.

(Image: Getty)

Still, loads arrive at the game with four or five already inside them anyway. At least in this instance, it can be controlled. Presumably police and licensing authorities would demand you hand over your match day stub or season ticket and get a pint or two, tops.

As always, though, there should be more vision attached to this. More community input, more local business collaboration, more food options attached, more commercial advice, more consideration.

And as aways, there’ll be none of it because our authorities think in one dimension.

We should be happy the debate has re-opened into whether football fans deserve better but spare us the sanctimony on either side and actually ask fans what they want and need. Then find a way to improve their lot.

Not because UEFA asked you to, but because the supporters themselves have.